Contextualizing Grammar Teaching Using Authentic Materials

LEARN Conference April 28, 2010

Jong Oh Eun, Dept C Chair, Asian School II

Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center

The problem
Teachers tend to teach grammar features simply by translating invented sentences. Existing literature in Korean does not sufficiently explain how and in what contexts forms are used and how they can be disambiguated using a discourse-based perspective.

Why context? Example 1

Context can change the meaning.

Example 2: .

Example 3: .

Why?

1. It should be something edible. 2. Koreans dont eat raccoon for lunch.

Three Dimensions of Teaching Grammar 1. Form (how is it formed?) Accuracy: syntax 2. Meaning (what does it mean?) Meaningfulness: semantics 3. Use (When/why is it used?) Appropriateness: pragmatics
(O) . (X) Three are interrelated.
(Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, 1999)

Example: Verb stem +

.

Form VS+

Meaning Reason

Function making excuses

Three Levels in Teaching Grammar

1. Sub-sentential level: (morphology) (action in the past) 2. Sentential level (Syntax) . *Traditional grammar usually stops here. 3. Discourse level . . Topic marker expresses contrast.

Approaches to Grammar 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Prescriptive Grammar Descriptive Grammar Transformational-Generative Grammar Functional Grammar Discourse Grammar

Prescriptive Grammar (Quirk et al, 1985)

Concerned with rules about the structure of a language Focus on what is right/correct and wrong/incorrect Prescriptive rules make a valued judgment about correct way to speak and write rather than the way people actually speak and write e.g., Musics are my favorite subject (X). Mass noun is not countable.

Descriptive Grammar
(Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, 1999) Concerned with how people actually use a language and then attempts to analyze it and formulate rules about the structure. Descriptive rules allow for different varieties esp. in spoken language However, people can still use this prescriptively. They tend to follow what these rules say.
2) .

e.g., 1) .

Transformational-generative grammar (Chomsky, 1957, 1965, 1981, 1991, 1995; Cook & Newson, 1966; Radford, 1988)
Concerned with competence (native speakers knowledge) rather than performance (actual realization) Provide a methodology for describing sentence structure through the concept of underlying "deep structure" by means of various transformational rules Discover a finite set of rules/mechanisms which generate an infinite set of sentences Determine how words and phrases combine to form larger syntactic units, up to the sentence level.

Example

Questions are formed by moving the modal verb will to the front of the sentence. a. The audience will enjoy this presentation. b. Will the audience enjoy this presentation?

Subject-Aux inversion

Functional grammar (Halliday, 1973; Givn, 1995)

Focus on meaning and functions of language as conveyors of information rather than just on forms

Contextual in orientation--looking at how language is used for different purposes in different contexts.

Functional grammar (Halliday, 1973; Givn, 1995)

Formal grammar

Boys (subject: noun) throw (verb) stones (object: noun)

Functional grammar

Boys (actor/agent) throw (process) stone (patient)

a. John lost his wallet. (Stress occurs in the last lexical item because it is new information.) b. John lost it. (Main stress in different position because pronominal element is given information)

Discourse grammar (Coulthard, 1994; McCarthy, 1999; Chafe, 1994; Ochs, Schegloff, & Thompson, 1996)
Discovers recurrent patterns Inductive methodology and data-driven analysis Looks at forms from functional approaches using actual data and large stretches of discourse. By looking at grammatical forms as they occur in actual discourse (both spoken and written), we can find many more patterns and help students understand the usages and formulate their own analyses of these forms to account for larger number of patterns.

Discourse Grammar

Data include: spoken media (e.g., telephone and face-to-face conversations, classroom interactions, narratives, interviews, TV shows, commercials, etc.) and written media (e.g., newspaper and magazine articles, essays, literary works, contracts, policies, etc.)

Example: count noun vs. non-count noun

Traditional grammar categorizes nouns as count vs non-count nouns, but this cant always apply to actual instances. Noncount nouns are mass nouns such as water, paper, coffee, music It depends on how people conceptualize the entity. For example, I like coffee. But we can say Can I have two coffees, please? (Two cups of coffee)

Example: count noun vs. non-count noun

1) Email: could be email message. a. I received an email from my friend. (Email message) b. I think I must have sent 6 emails to Dr. Roberts. 2) Email: Electronic mail system c. I sent a message by email. The choice of counting is motivated by speakers conceptualization or categorization (e.g., Lakoff, 1987)

Discourse Grammar
Formal grammar: Polite form: / formal Deferential form: : more formal Discourse Grammar: Polite form: shared information, inclusion Deferential form: new information, exclusion
(Eun & Strauss, 2004; Strauss & Eun, 2005)

Teaching Grammar Using Authentic Materials

The resources that have been developed for native speakers. Authentic materials include: TV Commercials, TV drama clips, movie clips Face-to face/ telephone conversations, talk shows, interviews, debates news broadcasts, newspapers, magazines, Cartoons, songs, pictures, etc

Teaching Grammar Using Authentic Materials

Contextual in orientation: focus on how the grammar feature is used Can provide larger stretches of discourse, not discreet phrases or sentences Can show more naturally occurring data rather than made up sentences Can capture prosodic features and non-verbal cues

Examples from Authentic Materials

Example

Grammar Project at Korean School (DLI)

Example

Conclusion
Multiple approaches to teaching grammar (Form focused + functional, Deductive + inductive) Grammar is dynamic, not static Grammar doesnt have to be boring. Beyond the sentence level discourse level Teach grammar in context Use of a variety of authentic materials Culture and grammar integration

This speech/presentation is authorized by the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center and the Department of Defense. Contents of this presentation are not necessarily the official views of, or endorsed by, the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, Department of the Army, or the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center